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Lufthansa is to reduce the proportion of long-haul planes with first-class seats in its fleet to 75 per cent, in a response to falling demand for airfare tickets that can command the price of a small car.

The airline has top-end cabins in more than 90 per cent of its wide-body fleet, chief executive Christoph Franz said. Some will disappear from the Airbus SAS A340-300 this year and from Boeing 747-400s in 2014.

Destinations set to lose the first-class option include Vancouver, for which a return ticket next week costs €10,020 (HK$103,000).

"They'll serve routes where there is simply no more demand for first class," Franz said in Berlin. "We're a little bit exotic here - we had first-class seats on 94 of our 100 long-haul planes. Others thought we were mad."

Lufthansa's retreat will leave it with a lower proportion of first class-equipped planes than British Airways, which says the service is available in 80 per cent of its long-haul fleet.

The German carrier said separately this week that it plans to purchase 108 new aircraft worth €9 billion, including eight wide-body jets.

Carsten Spohr, who heads the passenger airline business, told Lufthansa employees in a letter last year that the company planned to scrap its first-class product to some cities.

Lufthansa is mid-way through a €300 million overhaul of its first-class product. The plan covers installing the seats in new Boeing 747-8s and Airbus A380 models, upgrading first-class cabins in planes such as newer 747-400s, and fitting them in some A340s and A330s that do not yet offer first.

The carrier is also looking at ordering the latest Boeing 787 or Airbus A350 aircraft, Spohr said last month.

British Airways operates 112 long-haul planes, 90 of them featuring a first-class setup, it said. The London-based carrier has added six Boeing 777-300s in the past two years, all with first class, slightly increasing the proportion.

Air France offers first-class berths in only 40 per cent of its 100 or so wide-bodies after a decision in 2010 to drop them from some Boeing 777 twin-jets and boost economy seating.

Franz said that Lufthansa will also limit the number of economy-class rows removed to make way for flat-bed business berths, avoiding the loss of too much space in economy class.

Lufthansa generated 50.4 per cent of its long-haul revenue from first- and business-class passengers in 2011. That figure slipped to 49.3 per cent in the first nine months of 2012.

The airline is also adding its first premium-economy seats across the long-haul fleet, in a move announced in December.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: